Ad Atticum 5.21
Ad Atticum 5.21
Headnote
Cicero to Atticus, written from Laodicea on the Ides of February (13 February) 50 BC (Perseus dateline: Scr. Laodiceae Id. Febr. a. 704 (50)). It is the second winter of the Cilician proconsulship. Atticus has finished his crossing into Epirus and is wintering there; Cicero has come down out of the Taurus to the assize town of Laodicea to begin the spring circuit of his courts. The letter is a long, settled, deliberate one — the kind he writes when he has the table to himself and his secretary at his elbow — and covers in turn the Parthian situation, the worry that his command will be prorogued, the moral economy of his administration, the year’s judicial itinerary, the great affair of Brutus and the Salaminian creditors, and a closing flurry of household business. It is one of the load-bearing letters of the proconsular correspondence: the moneylending case in particular will hover over the Brutus correspondence to come.
The first half of the letter is governed by an old Ciceronian theme dressed in new clothes. He has governed his province at three-and-a-quarter percent where his predecessors took whatever the market would bear; he has refused to billet troops in winter quarters on communities that would pay to be spared them; he has forbidden statues, shrines, four-horse chariots and the rest of the honorific apparatus by which Roman governors were customarily flattered into avarice. He says this to Atticus because Atticus is the one man in Rome with whom he can say it without performance: “you yourself wished me to do these things.” And he says it because the famine that has fallen on Asia made the test sharp: he extracted grain not by force or judgement but by authority and exhortation. The detail about L. Tullius — a lieutenant who broke the Julian law in transit “only once a day,” not, as others did, in every village — is meant as comedy, not as confession.
Then comes the great business with which the letter is most identified. Brutus, through his agents M. Scaptius and P. Matinius, had advanced money to the community of Salamis in Cyprus at forty-eight percent compound interest, four percent per month. This was flagrantly above the twelve percent ceiling of the lex Gabinia on provincial loans; the loan had been protected only by two senatorial decrees of 56 BC, which Brutus’s connections had procured and which exempted this one bond from the cap. Appius Claudius, Cicero’s predecessor, had given Scaptius a prefecture and a troop of cavalry with which to bully the Salaminians into paying. Cicero finds, on arrival, that his own standing edict caps interest at twelve percent with annual compounding; that the Salaminians can in fact pay; that they offer to deposit the money in a temple if Scaptius will not take it at the legal rate; and that Scaptius is fighting on, demanding the higher rate by force of the senatorial decree. Cicero withdraws the cavalry, refuses Scaptius a new prefecture (“I give one to no man in business”), and freezes the case at his edict’s twelve percent. The episode is the great hinge of his self-image as governor: Brutus’s friendship was at stake, and Cicero would not bend the rule for him. The reader of the Brutus correspondence later — and of the letters that record Atticus’s own embarrassment at having to mediate — should keep this scene in view.
The closing flicker is the Tullia question. The [Greek: secret-of-the-house matter] is the choice of a third husband for his daughter; Cicero is canvassing Atticus’s preference between the son of Postumia (Servius Sulpicius’s wife) and an arrangement proposed through Pontidia. (The choice will in the end fall on neither — Tullia and her mother will settle on Dolabella in his absence, to his complicated later feelings.) Then a note about the Eleusinian Mysteries, and the calendar question — whether Rome has inserted an intercalary month — on which the date of the Mysteries, and therefore Atticus’s movements, will turn. The letter trails off, as the long deliberate letters often do, into the small fabric of practical concerns through which the great matters had to be carried.
That you have come safely into Epirus and, as you write, made the crossing to your liking, I rejoice with all my heart; that you are not at Rome at a moment exceedingly necessary to me, I take rather hard. With this one thought, however, I console myself: I hope you are wintering pleasantly where you are and resting yourself with a good will.
C. Cassius, the brother of your intimate Q. Cassius, had sent more sober letters — the ones about whose meaning you ask me — than those he sent afterwards, in which he writes that the Parthian war has been finished off by his own hand. They had indeed withdrawn from Antioch before Bibulus arrived, but with no good day’s work of ours; today, in fact, they are wintering in Cyrrhestica, and a vast war is hanging over us. For the son of Orodes, king of the Parthians, is in our province, and Deiotarus — to whose son the daughter of Artavasdes is betrothed, from whom the truth can be known — does not doubt that he himself will cross the Euphrates with all his forces in early summer. On the very day on which Cassius’s victorious dispatches were read out in the Senate, dated the Nones of October, my own were read on the same day, reporting the alarm. Our Axius says that mine were full of authority; the others, he says, were not believed. Bibulus’s had not yet arrived; these I know for a fact will be full of fear.
C. Cassius, frater Q. Cassi familiaris tui, pudentiores illas litteras miserat de quibus tu ex me requiris quid sibi voluerint quam eas quas postea misit, quibus per se scribit confectum esse Parthicum bellum. recesserant illi quidem ab Antiochia ante Bibuli adventum sed nullo nostro εὐημερήματι; hodie vero hiemant in Cyrrhestica, maximumque bellum impendet. nam et Orodi regis Parthorum filius in provincia nostra est, nec dubitat Deiotarus, cuius filio pacta est Artavasdis filia ex quo sciri potest, quin cum omnibus copiis ipse prima aestate Euphraten transiturus sit. quo autem die Cassi litterae victrices in senatu recitatae sunt, datae Nonis Octobribus, eodem meae tumultum nuntiantes. Axius noster ait nostras auctoritatis plenas fuisse, illis negat creditum. Bibuli nondum erant adlatae; quas certo scio plenas timoris fore.
From all this my fear is that, while Pompey is on no account let go because of the dread of revolution, no honour will be granted to Caesar by the Senate, and until this knot is untied the Senate will think that we ought not to step down before a successor has come, and that in so great an upheaval such great provinces should not be left in the charge of single lieutenants. My horror is that something may be prorogued upon me here, which not even a tribune’s veto could ward off; the more so because you are away, who by counsel, influence, and zeal would meet many situations head-on. But you will say I am inventing my own anxieties. I am forced to wish it so; but I fear everything. And though that letter of yours, which you sent off sea-sick from Buthrotum, has the fine closing flourish that, as I see and hope, there will be no delay in your stepping down, “I should rather” (as I see) was needless; “I hope” was enough.
ex his rebus hoc vereor ne cum Pompeius propter metum rerum novarum nusquam dimittatur, Caesari nullus honos a senatu habeatur, dum hic nodus expediatur, non putet senatus nos ante quam successum sit oportere decedere nec in tanto motu rerum tantis provinciis singulos legatos praeesse. hic ne quid mihi prorogetur, quod ne intercessor quidem sustinere possit, horreo atque eo magis quod tu abes qui consilio, gratia, studio multis rebus occurreres. sed dices me ipsum mihi sollicitudinem struere. cogor ut velim ita sit; sed omnia metuo. etsi bellum ἀκροτελεύτιον habet illa tua epistula quam dedisti nauseans Buthroto, tibi, ut video et spero, nulla ad decedendum erit mora. mallem ut video, nihil opus fuit ut spero.
I had received it fairly promptly at Iconium, by the tax-farmers’ couriers, the one sent at the time of Lentulus’s triumph. In it you confirm that bittersweet thing, that there will be no delay for me; then you add that, if things go otherwise, you will come to me yourself. Your hesitations weigh on me, especially when you see which of your letters I have received. For the ones which you write you sent by the camp-servant of the centurion Hermon I have not received. You had written more than once that you had given letters to Laenius’s boys. Those Laenius at last delivered to me at Laodicea, when I had got there, on the third day before the Ides of February — letters dated the tenth day before the Kalends of October. Your recommendation of Laenius I will at once make good by my words, and by my deeds in the time to come.
acceperam autem satis celeriter Iconi per publicanorum tabellarios a Lentuli triumpho datas. in his γλυκύπικρον illud confirmas moram mihi nullam fore; deinde addis, si quid secus, te ad me esse venturum. angunt me dubitationes tuae; simul et vides quas acceperim litteras. nam quas Hermonis centurionis caculae ipse scribis te dedisse non accepi. Laeni pueris te dedisse saepe ad me scripseras. eas Laodiceae denique, cum eo venissem, iii Idus Februar. Laenius mihi reddidit datas a. d. x Kal. Octobris. Laenio tuas commendationes et statim verbis et reliquo tempore re probabo.
That letter had nothing new in it apart from one thing, about the Cibyran panthers. I love you much for having answered M. Octavius that you did not think so. But from now on, refuse outright as certain anything that is not strictly proper. We, in fact, both of our own accord well steadied, and, by Hercules, fired up by your authority, have outdone everyone — and this you will find to be so — in self-restraint as well as in justice, accessibility, and clemency. Don’t suppose that anything has ever amazed people more than that, throughout my tenure of the province, not a farthing has been spent — not on public business, not on any of my staff — except in the case of L. Tullius the lieutenant. He, otherwise abstinent, does break the Julian law in transit, but only once a day, not, as others were accustomed, in every village (apart from him, only one man took anything, and only once), so that he must be made an exception when I say that not a farthing has been spent. Apart from him no one accepted anything. These soilings I had from our Q. Titinius.
eae litterae cetera vetera habebant, unum hoc novum de Cibyratis pantheris. multum te amo quod respondisti M. Octavio te non putare. sed posthac omnia quae recta non erunt pro certo negato. nos enim et nostra sponte bene firmi et me hercule auctoritate tua inflammati vicimus omnis (hoc tu ita reperies) cum abstinentia tum iustitia, facilitate, clementia. cave putes quicquam homines magis umquam esse miratos quam nullum terruncium me obtinente provinciam sumptus factum esse nec in rem publicam nec in quemquam meorum praeter quam in L. Tullium legatum. is ceteroqui abstinens sed Iulia lege transitans, semel tamen in diem, non ut alii solebant omnibus vicis (praeter eum semel nemo accepit), facit ut mihi excipiendus sit, cum terruncium nego sumptus factum. praeter eum accepit nemo. has a nostro Q. Titinio sordis accepimus.
I, with the summer campaign finished, set my brother Quintus in charge of the winter quarters and of Cilicia. Q. Volusius, the son-in-law of your dear Tiberius, a sound man and astonishingly self-restrained besides, I sent across to Cyprus to be there for just a few days, so that the small number of Roman citizens who do business there could not say that justice had been refused them; for to summon Cyprians out of their
ego aestivis confectis Quintum fratrem hibernis et Ciliciae praefeci. Q. Volusium tui Tiberi generum, certum hominem sed mirifice etiam abstinentem, misi in Cyprum ut ibi pauculos dies esset, ne cives Romani pauci qui illic negotiantur ius sibi dictum negarent; nam evocari ex insula
island is not permitted. I myself set out for Asia from Tarsus on the Nones of January, and, by Hercules, it cannot be told with what admiration of the communities of Cilicia, and above all of the people of Tarsus. After I had crossed the Taurus, there was an extraordinary expectation for me in the dioceses of Asia, which for the six months of my command had had no letter of mine, had never seen me as their guest. Now that season every year before me had been used for this kind of revenue: wealthy communities used to pay large sums of money to keep soldiers from going into winter quarters; the Cyprians paid two hundred Attic talents. From which island (I am not speaking hyperbolically but in plainest truth) not a coin will be drawn out while I hold the province. In return for these benefits, at which they stand stupefied, I allow no honours to be decreed me except those of words; I forbid statues, shrines, four-horse chariots, and in no other matter am I a burden to the communities — though perhaps to you, when I keep proclaiming all this about myself. Bear with it, if you love me: you yourself wished me to do these things.
Cyprios non licet. ipse in Asiam profectus sum Tarso Nonis Ianuariis, non me hercule dici potest qua admiratione Ciliciae civitatum maximeque Tarsensium. postea veroquam Taurum transgressus sum, mirifica exspectatio Asiae nostrarum dioecesium quae sex mensibus imperi mei nullas meas acceperat litteras, numquam hospitem viderat. illud autem tempus quotannis ante me fuerat in hoc quaestu. civitates locupletes ne in hiberna milites reciperent magnas pecunias dabant, Cyprii talenta Attica cc; qua ex insula (non ὑπερβολικῶσ sed verissime loquor) nummus nullus me obtinente erogabitur. ob haec beneficia quibus illi obstupescunt nullos honores mihi nisi verborum decerni sino, statuas, fana, τέθριππα prohibeo nec sum in ulla re alia molestus civitatibus—sed fortasse tibi qui haec praedicem de me. perfer, si me amas; tu enim me haec facere voluisti.
I made my journey through Asia, then, in such a way that even the famine — than which nothing is more wretched — which then weighed on this Asia of mine (for there had been no harvest) became something I had to hope for. Wherever I went, with no force, no judgement, no abuse, by authority and exhortation alone, I brought it about that the Greeks and Roman citizens who had been hoarding grain promised great quantities to the people.
iter igitur ita per Asiam feci ut etiam fames qua nihil miserius est, quae tum erat in hac mea Asia (messis enim nulla fuerat), mihi optanda fuerit. quacumque iter feci, nulla vi, nullo iudicio, nulla contumelia, auctoritate et cohortatione perfeci ut et Graeci et cives Romani qui frumentum compresserant magnum numerum populis pollicerentur.
On the Ides of February, the day on which I sent this letter, I had arranged to hold the assize at Laodicea for the Cibyratic and Apamene dioceses, from the Ides of March in the same place for the Synnadene, the Pamphylian (then I shall test out Phemius’s horn), the Lycaonian, the Isaurian; from the Ides of May into Cilicia, so that June may be used up there, in peace from the Parthians, I hope. July, if things go as I wish, must be spent on the road, on my way back through the province. For we came into the province at Laodicea in the consulship of Sulpicius and Marcellus on the day before the Kalends of August. From there I must depart on the third day before the Kalends of August. My first effort will be to press my brother Quintus to allow himself to be put in charge, although he himself, like me, will be most unwilling. But honour cannot be served otherwise, since not even now can I retain that excellent man Pomptinus. For Postumius is dragging the man off to Rome — and perhaps Postumia is too.
Idibus Februariis, quo die has litteras dedi, forum institueram agere Laodiceae Cibyraticum et Apamense, ex Idibus Martiis ibidem Synnadense, Pamphylium (tum Phemio dispiciam κέρασ, Lycaonium, Isauricum; ex Idibus Maiis in Ciliciam, ut ibi Iunius consumatur, velim tranquille a Parthis. Quintilis, si erit ut volumus, in itinere est per provinciam redeuntibus consumendus. venimus enim in provinciam Laodiceam Sulpicio et Marcello consulibus pridie Kalendas Sextilis. inde nos oportet decedere a. d. III Kalendas Sextilis. primum contendam a Quinto fratre ut se praefici patiatur, quod et illo et me invitissimo fiet. sed aliter honeste fieri non potest, praesertim cum virum optimum Pomptinum ne nunc quidem retinere possim. rapit enim hominem Postumius Romam, fortasse etiam Postumia.
You have my plans; now hear about Brutus. Your friend Brutus has certain intimates who are creditors of the Salaminians of Cyprus, M. Scaptius and P. Matinius; whom he recommended to me in the warmest terms. Matinius I do not know; Scaptius came to me in camp. I promised that, for Brutus’s sake, I would see to it that the Salaminians paid him the money. He gave thanks. He asked for a prefecture. I refused, saying I gave one to no man in business (something I had already made plain to you when Cn. Pompeius asked, and which I had proved acceptable to my course of conduct — what to say of Torquatus on behalf of your M. Laenius, and of many others?); but if he wished to be a prefect for the sake of the bond, I would see to it that he collected. He gave thanks; he withdrew. Our Appius had given this Scaptius some troops of cavalry, by means of which to coerce the Salaminians, and had given him a prefecture too; he was harassing the Salaminians. I ordered the cavalry to withdraw from Cyprus. Scaptius took it hard.
habes consilia nostra; nunc cognosce de Bruto. familiaris habet Brutus tuus quosdam creditores Salaminiorum ex Cypro, M. Scaptium et P. Matinium; quos mihi maiorem in modum commendavit. Matinium non novi, Scaptius ad me in castra venit. pollicitus sum curaturum me Bruti causa ut ei Salaminii pecuniam solverent. egit gratias. praefecturam petivit. negavi me cuiquam negotianti dare (quod idem tibi ostenderam Cn. Pompeio petenti probaram institutum meum, quid dicam Torquato de M. Laenio tuo, multis aliis?); sin praefectus vellet esse syngraphae causa, me curaturum ut exigeret. gratias egit, discessit. Appius noster turmas aliquot equitum dederat huic Scaptio per quas Salaminios coerceret, et eundem habuerat praefectum; vexabat Salaminios. ego equites ex Cypro decedere iussi. moleste tulit Scaptius.
What more is there to say? So that I might make good my pledge to him, when the Salaminians, Scaptius among them, had come to me at Tarsus, I ordered them to pay the money. Much was said about the bond, much about Scaptius’s wrongs. I refused to listen; I urged them, I even begged them, by virtue of my services to their community, to settle the business; I said at last that I would compel them. The men not only did not refuse, but even said this: that they were paying from me. For the sums which they had been accustomed to give to the praetor, since I had not accepted them, they were in some way paying from me, and indeed Scaptius’s account was somewhat lower than the praetor’s revenue would have been. I commended the men. “Quite right,” says Scaptius, “but let us add up the total.” Meanwhile, since I had in my standing edict the provision that I would observe twelve per cent simple interest with annual compounding, he was demanding from the bond forty-eight per cent. “What is this?” I say. “Can I go against my own edict?” But he produces a decree of the Senate, passed in the consulship of Lentulus and Philippus, that whoever held Cilicia should administer justice in accordance with that bond.
quid multa? ut ei fidem meam praestarem, cum ad me Salaminii Tarsum venissent et in iis Scaptius, imperavi ut pecuniam solverent. multa de syngrapha, de Scapti iniuriis. negavi me audire; hortatus sum, petivi etiam pro meis in civitatem beneficiis ut negotium conficerent, dixi denique me coacturum. homines non modo non recusare sed etiam hoc dicere, se a me solvere. quod enim praetori dare consuessent, quoniam ego non acceperam, se a me quodam modo dare atque etiam minus esse aliquanto in Scapti nomine quam in vectigali praetorio. conlaudavi homines. recte inquit Scaptius, sed subducamus summam. interim cum ego in edicto translaticio centesimas me observaturum haberem cum anatocismo anniversario, ille ex syngrapha postulabat quaternas. quid ais? inquam, possumne contra meum edictum? at ille profert senatus consultum Lentulo Philippoque consulibus, ut qui Ciliciam obtineret ius ex illa sungrapha diceret.
I shuddered at first; for it would have been the ruin of the community. I find two decrees of the Senate by those same consuls about the same bond. The Salaminians, when they had wished to refinance their loan at Rome, could not, because the lex Gabinia (a law on provincial loans) forbade it. Then Brutus’s intimates, trusting in Brutus’s influence, wished to advance them money at forty-eight per cent, if they could be safeguarded by a decree of the Senate. By Brutus’s favour a decree of the Senate is passed that neither the Salaminians nor the men who had given them the money should incur penalty. They paid out the money. But afterwards it came into the moneylenders’ minds that that decree did them no good, because the lex Gabinia forbade justice to be administered in accordance with such a bond. Then a decree of the Senate is passed that justice should be administered in accordance with this particular bond — not so that this bond should be on a different legal footing from any other, but on the same one. When I had set all this out, Scaptius draws me aside; he says he raises no objection to my account, but that they think they owe two hundred talents; that he is willing to take that; and that they owe somewhat less. He asks me to bring them up to two hundred. “Excellent,” say I. I summon them to me with Scaptius withdrawn. “Well, then? How much do you owe?” I ask. They answer, one hundred and six. I refer the matter back to Scaptius. The man bursts out shouting. “Well, then,” say I, “you must compare your accounts.” They sit down, they work it out; they agree to the last coin. The Salaminians say they wish to pay; they press him to accept. Scaptius draws me aside again; he asks me to leave the matter where it stands. I yielded to a man asking shamelessly; when the Greeks complained, when they begged to deposit the money in a temple, I refused. All who were present cried out — some that nothing was more shameless than Scaptius, who was not content with twelve per cent compound; some that nothing was more stupid. To me he seemed more shameless than stupid; for either he was not content with twelve per cent on a good debt, or he was hoping for forty-eight per cent on a bad one. That is my case.
cohorrui primo; etenim erat interitus civitatis. reperio duo senatus consulta isdem consulibus de eadem syngrapha. Salaminii cum Romae versuram facere vellent, non poterant, quod lex Gabinia vetabat. tum iis Bruti familiares freti gratia Bruti dare volebant quaternis, si sibi senatus consulto caveretur. fit gratia Bruti senatus consultum, ut neve salaminis neve qui eis dedisset fraudi esset. pecuniam numerarunt. at postea venit in mentem faeneratoribus nihil se iuvare illud senatus consultum, quod ex syngrapha ius dici lex Gabinia vetaret. tum fit senatus consultum, ut ex ea syngrapha ius diceretur, non ut alio iure ea syngrapha esset quam ceterae sed ut eodem. cum haec disseruissem, seducit me Scaptius; ait se nihil contra dicere sed illos putare talenta cc se debere; ea se velle accipere; debere autem illos paulo minus. rogat ut eos ad ducenta perducam. optime inquam. voco illos ad me remoto Scaptio. quid? vos quantum inquam debetis? respondent cvi. refero ad Scaptium. homo clamare. quid? opus est inquam rationes conferatis. adsidunt, subducunt; ad nummum convenit. illi se numerare velle, urgere ut acciperet. Scaptius me rursus seducit, rogat ut rem sic relinquam. dedi veniam homini impudenter petenti; Graecis querentibus, ut in fano deponerent postulantibus non concessi. clamare omnes qui aderant, alii nihil impudentius Scaptio qui centesimis cum anatocismo contentus non esset, alii nihil stultius. mihi autem impudens magis quam stultus videbatur; nam aut bono nomine centesimis contentus non erat aut non bono quaternas centesimas sperabat. habes meam causam.
If Brutus does not approve of it, I see no reason why we should love him. But his uncle will certainly approve — especially since a decree of the Senate has just been passed (I think, after your departure) in a creditors’ case, that twelve per cent should run as the perpetual rate. What this means, if I know your fingers, you have certainly worked out. In this connection — a thing by the way — L. Lucceius, son of Marcus, complains to me by letter that there is the gravest danger that, through the fault of the Senate in these decrees, the matter may run on to a cancellation of debts; he recalls what mischief C. Iulius once did when he tacked on a little day; never did the commonwealth get worse. But I return to the matter. Rehearse my case against Brutus, if there is a case here against which nothing creditable can be said, especially since I have left the whole matter and the case open.
quae si Bruto non probatur, nescio cur illum amemus. sed avunculo eius certe probabitur, praesertim cum senatus consultum modo factum sit, puto, postquam tu es profectus, in creditorum causa ut centesimae perpetuo faenore ducerentur. hoc quid intersit, si tuos digitos novi, certe habes subductum. in quo quidem, ὁδοῦ πάρεργον, L. Lucceius M. f. queritur apud me per litteras summum esse periculum ne culpa senatus his decretis res ad tabulas novas perveniat; commemorat quid olim mali C. Iulius fecerit cum dieculam duxerit; numquam rei publicae plus. sed ad rem redeo. meditare adversus Brutum causam meam, si haec causa est contra quam nihil honeste dici potest, praesertim cum integram rem et causam reliquerim.
The rest is family business. As for the secret-of-the-house matter, I am of your mind — for the son of Postumia, since Pontidia is being trifling. But I wish you were here. Look for nothing from my brother Quintus in these months; for the Taurus, on account of the snows, cannot be crossed before June. Thermus, as you ask, I prop up with the most frequent letters. King Deiotarus says P. Valerius has nothing and that he is being supported by him. When you know whether or not an intercalary month has been added at Rome, I should like you to write me a sure account of the day on which the Mysteries are to be. I look for letters from you a little less than if you were at Rome — but I look for them still.
reliqua sunt domestica. de ἐνδομύχῳ probo idem quod tu, Postumiae filio, quoniam Pontidia nugatur. sed vellem adesses. a Quinto fratre his mensibus nihil exspectaris; nam Taurus propter nives ante mensem Iunium transiri non potest. Thermum, ut rogas, creberrimis litteris fulcio. P. Valerium negat habere quicquam Deiotarus rex eumque ait a se sustentari. cum scies Romae intercalatum sit necne, velim ad me scribas certum quo die mysteria futura sint. litteras tuas minus paulo exspecto quam si Romae esses sed tamen exspecto.